Seminal
thinkers of the nineteenth century -- Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer,
Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud -- all
predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease
to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. The belief
that religion was dying became the conventional wisdom in the social
sciences during most of the twentieth century.

During the
last decade, however, the secularization thesis has experienced the
most sustained challenge in its long history. Critics point to
multiple indicators of religious health and vitality today, from the
continued popularity of churchgoing in the United States, to the
emergence of New Age spirituality in Western Europe, the surge of
fundamentalist movements and Islamic parties in the Muslim world, the
evangelical revival sweeping through Latin America, and the widespread
ethno-religious conflicts in international affairs.

The
traditional secularization thesis needs updating. Religion has not
disappeared and is unlikely to do so. Nevertheless, the concept of
secularization captures an important part of what is going on. This
book develops a theory of secularization and existential security,
building on key elements of traditional sociological theories and
revising others. This book demonstrates that: (1) The publics of
virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward
more secular orientations during the past fifty years; but (2) The
world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views
than ever before-- and they constitute a growing proportion of the
world's population. Though these two propositions may seem
contradictory, they are not. The fact that the first proposition is
true, helps account for the second—because secularization has a
surprisingly powerful negative impact on human fertility rates.

The critiques
of secularization draw their evidence mainly from the United States
(which happens to be a strikingly exceptional case) rather than
comparing systematic evidence across a broad range of both rich and
poor societies. This book draws on a massive base of new evidence
generated by the four waves of the World Values Survey executed from
1981 to 2001 in eighty societies, covering all of the world’s major
faiths. Examining religiosity from a broader perspective and in a
wider range of countries than ever before, this book demonstrates that
religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations,
especially those in poorer nations and in failed states, facing
personal survival-threatening risks. Exposure to physical, societal
and personal risks drives religiosity. Conversely, a systematic
erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among
the more prosperous strata in rich nations.

Sacred and
Secular is essential reading for anyone interested in comparative
religion, sociology, public opinion, political behavior, political
development, social psychology, international relations, and cultural
change.